Who might such triumph see with mortal eyes),
And thence sublimely passed into the skies
Ethereal-where, at the Father's right,

He sits and rules Who, governing the height
Of Heav'n, descended to the Deep profound,
And from the Deep arose.

All, standing round
Adoring, saw Him rise beyond the bars
Of cloud and tread the luminous path of stars.
His heav'nly course in joyful hearts they bear
So all might learn: True Witnesses they were
By strength divine; though much had met their
sight

They few of acts innumerable write :

For not the world could all the books confine
Were it ordained in Holy Writ to shrine
All things accomplished by our Lord divine.1

Thus with the impressive words of St. John the Beloved closes the Fifth and last Book of the Easter Song of Sedulius, the First Epic of Christendom.

Compare with its serene spiritual beauty of peace and love, Milton's scene of wrath and revenge. Plagiarising Homer's

1 Faithful to his remarkable rule, Sedulius concludes this Book and, as it were, signs his great Epic by a couplet in Irish metric, thus: Facta redemptoris nec Totus Cingere Mundus

sufficeret densos per Tanta volumina libros.

In the first line are three dissyllables with perfect double broad vowel rimes, re-echoed by an interlaced riming word, “tanta," in the second line. There are also three consonant alliterations t t c. In the second line there are two dissyllables, with delicately varied vowel rimes, now slender-broad-densos, libros. Be it observed that the final riming syllable is in "os," which also is found to be the final of the First Book (and not elsewhere), a most marked Irish characteristic link between first and last.

account of Achilles' brutal deed, who dragged dead Hector round the walls of Troy, Milton thinks to glorify the divine Redeemer by imputing a similar deed to Him:

Then to the Heaven of Heavens he shall ascend
With victory, triumphing through the air
Over his foes and thine; there shall surprise
The Serpent, Prince of Air, and drag in chains

Through all his realm, and there confounded leave.

An ineffective conclusion, for the Serpent was not slain, like Hector. Where Milton diverges from Sedulius he sinks sadly.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE FIRST AND THE LAST EPIC OF

CHRISTENDOM

SECTION I

PART I

"Paradise Lost "-Milton's Debt to Sedulius

If an architect should desire to raise a great though composite edifice, and find materials largely at his disposal in some ancient temple or stately mansion, what might be his course? Possibly he might adopt the general plan, modify it, add wings, an underground and an overhead story with a skyline after his manner. Then he would make use of the materials at hand. No considerable or complete mass of masonry taken from the old should be embedded in the new building to declare its origin; but it might be impossible to replace and therefore necessary to preserve some examples of elder art, such as a peerless portal, a noble arch, or many fine if lesser works of sculptor, carver, or designer. These are retained accordingly-displaced, dissevered, dispersed—and built into the walls of the new edifice, amid other rich spoils, or masses of material, shaped from the architect's own copious quarries so that they should not conspire together against his originality, but rather co-operate to applaud his skill.

This has been Milton's method, and his great epic is, therefore, a great mosaic of pieces from the works of other